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ASEAN visits China as Myanmar unrest boils
Four member-state ministers take turns meeting with Beijing counterpart
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he foreign ministers of four Southeast Asian nations, including Retno LP Marsudi, are to visit China this week at the invitation of senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi, as excessive violence in Myanmar threatens regional stability.
The ministers from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines will take turns meeting with their counterpart in Beijing between Wednesday to Friday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah confirmed that Retno was headed to China on Thursday, after concluding her first visit to Japan this year alongside Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto.
Another official said that Myanmar would be an issue of common concern with China, although the official could not speak to the substance of other countries’ concerns due to the different timings of the meetings with Wang Yi.
Malaysia’s foreign minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, is also expected to visit China on Thursday, an official statement from its ministry confirmed.
As state counsellor, Wang Yi visited Myanmar, Brunei and the Philippines in January, as well as Indonesia, as he hailed “broad common interests” toward recovery from COVID-19.
His visit occurred just two weeks before Myanmar’s armed forces, the Tatmadaw, launched a coup that toppled the country’s elected civilian government and which led to an outbreak of protest and civil disobedience movements. The military’s response has been a bloody crackdown that has left more than 500 people dead and over 3,000 dissenters arbitrarily arrested.
Read also: Indonesia calls for ASEAN meeting on Myanmar crisis
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Tuesday that China expected to be discussing a broad range of regional issues, although the Myanmar issue was not specifically singled out.
“Through these visits, China hopes to step up communication with ASEAN countries on the regional and international situation, implement important consensus of the leadership, strengthen strategic mutual trust, deepen anti-epidemic and development cooperation, boost quality [Belt and Road] cooperation, scale new heights in bilateral relations and the China-ASEAN relationship, and better safeguard regional peace, stability and development,” she said, as quoted on the ministry’s website.
Myanmar is set to assume the role of ASEAN-China dialogue coordinator, and senior Chinese leaders made three visits to the country in 2020 and 2021, the most for any ASEAN nation over this period. But the coup now risks derailing Chinese forays into Myanmar and ASEAN.
Beijing has so far refrained from condemning the coup, but Japan's Kyodo News reported that it was now restricting entry from Myanmar and has even started prohibiting Myanmar citizens from staying at hotels, as concerns grew that the social turmoil across the border might spill over to the country.
As of Tuesday, 521 people had been killed by Myanmar’s military junta, according to a tally by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), which documents and verifies the atrocities committed within the last two months.
Speaking in Tokyo on Tuesday, Minister Retno said Indonesia “strongly denounced” Myanmar’s actions that killed more than 100 people over the weekend, the bloodiest period in the crackdown so far.
“It is unacceptable. While continuously respecting the non-interference principle, ASEAN offered its assistance to Myanmar from the very beginning,” she said.
“For Indonesia, the safety and wellbeing of the people is paramount. Dialogue should be pursued to bring democracy, peace and stability back to Myanmar.”
But with ASEAN voices split between supporting and denouncing the coup, the international community has grown impatient waiting for a regional solution.
Read also: Myanmar, Indonesia: Parallels in their modern history
The four ASEAN countries invited to visit China are some of the most vocal members of the bloc vis-a-vis Myanmar.
Meanwhile, when the latest bloodbath occurred on March 27, a military parade held in Naypyidaw in commemoration of Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day saw representatives of Thailand, Vietnam and Laos in attendance.
“It is shameful that ASEAN states have sent representatives to effectively celebrate this murderous [dictatorship],” said Charles Santiago, chairman of the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), in a statement issued on Monday.
“China, Russia, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, by also attending the Armed Forces Day parade, sent a clear message that their geopolitical and economic interests matter more than people’s lives.”
The United States on Wednesday ordered the departure of its diplomats from Myanmar to protect the safety and security of staff and their families, the US State Department said in a statement. US moves of such kind are traditionally seen as a warning of upcoming disorder.
During a recent webinar, former United Nations special rapporteur Marzuki Darusman, who headed the independent fact-finding mission on Myanmar in 2017, warned that the Tatmadaw would speed up killing in the months to come, and that there was evidence of a plan to clamp down on all dissent by May or June.
He said the rapid increase in the death toll in Myanmar had already grown to the level of “industrial killing”.
“That is to produce the minimum number of victims to reach a level of production that could deter the civil disobedience movement from continuing,” Marzuki said.
